At the general audience of Wednesday, 26 January, in the Paul VI
Hall, the Holy Father delivered the following address:

1. The sign of marriage as a sacrament of the Church is constituted
each time according to that dimension which is proper to it from the
"beginning." At the same time it is constituted on the foundation of the
spousal love of Christ and of the Church as the unique and unrepeatable
expression of the covenant between "this" man and "this" woman. They are
the ministers of marriage as a sacrament of their vocation and their
life. In saying that the sign of marriage as a sacrament of the Church
is constituted on the basis of the language of the body, we are using
analogy (the analogy of attribution), which we have sought to
clarify previously. It is obvious that the body as such does not
"speak," but man speaks, rereading that which requires to be expressed
precisely on the basis of the "body," of the masculinity and femininity
of the personal subject, indeed, on the basis of what can be expressed
by man only by means of the body.

In this sense manmale
or femaledoes
not merely speak with the language of the body. But in a certain sense
he permits the body to speak "for him" and "on his behalf," I would say,
in his name and with his personal authority. In this way even the
concept of the "prophetism of the body" seems to be well founded. The
prophet spoke "for" and "on behalf of"in
the name and with the authority of a person.

2. The newlywed spouses are aware of it when in contracting marriage
they institute its visible sign. In the perspective of life in common
and of the conjugal vocation, that initial sign, the original sign of
marriage as a sacrament of the Church, will be continually completed by
the "prophetism of the body." The spouses' bodies will speak "for"
and "on behalf of" each of them. They will speak in the name of
and with the authority of the person, of each of the persons,
carrying out the conjugal dialogue proper to their vocation and based on
the language of the body, reread in due course opportunely and
continuallyand
it is necessary that it be reread in truth! The spouses are called to
form their life and their living together as a communion of persons on
the basis of that language. Granted that there corresponds to the
language a complexus of meaning, the spousesby
means of their conduct and comportment, by means of their actions and
gestures ("gestures of tenderness"cf.
Gaudium et Spes 49)are
called to become the authors of such meanings of the "language of the
body." Consequently, love, fidelity, conjugal uprightness and that union
which remains indissoluble until death are constructed and continually
deepened.

3. The sign of marriage as a sacrament of the Church is formed precisely
by those meanings which the spouses are the authors of. All these
meanings are initiated and in a certain sense "programmed" in a
synthetic manner in the conjugal consent for the purpose of constructing
laterin
a more analytical way, day by daythe
same sign, identifying oneself with it in the dimension of the whole of
life. There is an organic bond between rereading in truth the
integral significance of the language of the body and the consequent
use of that language in conjugal life. In this last sphere the human
beingmale
and femaleis
the author of the meanings of the language of the body. This implies
that this language which he is the author of corresponds to the truth
which has been reread. On the basis of biblical tradition we speak here
of the "prophetism of the body." If the human beingmale
and femalein
marriage (and indirectly also in all the spheres of mutual life
together) confers on his behavior a significance in conformity with
the fundamental truth of the language of the body, then he also
"is in the truth." In the contrary case he is guilty of a lie and
falsifies the language of the body.

4. If we place ourselves on the perspective line of conjugal consentwhich,
as we have already said, offers the spouses a particular participation
in the prophetic mission of the Church handed down from Christ himselfwe
can in this regard also use the biblical distinction between true and
false prophets. By means of marriage as a sacrament of the Church, man
and woman are called explicitly to bear witnessby
using correctly the language of the bodyto
spousal and procreative love, a witness worthy of true prophets.
The true significance and the grandeur of conjugal consent in the
sacrament of the Church consists in this.

5. The problematic of the sacramental sign of marriage has a highly
anthropological character. We construct it on the basis of theological
anthropology and in particular on that which, from the beginning of the
present considerations, we have defined as the theology of the body.
Therefore, in continuing these analyses, we should always have before
our minds the previous considerations which refer to the analysis of the
key words of Christ. (We call them key words because they open up for
us, like a key, the individual dimensions of theological anthropology,
especially of the theology of the body.) Constructing on this basis the
analysis of the sacramental sign of marriage in which the man and woman
always participate, even after original sin, that is, man and woman as
historical man, we must constantly bear in mind the fact that that
historical man, male and female, is at the same time the man of
concupiscence. As such, every man and every woman enter the history of
salvation and they are involved in it through the sacrament which is the
visible sign of the covenant and of grace.

Therefore, we bear this in mind in the context of the present
reflections, on the sacramental structure of the sign of not only what
Christ said on the unity and indissolubility of marriage by referring to
the "beginning," but also (and still more) what he said in the Sermon on
the Mount when he referred to the "human heart."

Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
31 January 1983, page 11

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